Thursday, October 27, 2005

(...) «A third ring at the bell. A young doctor, in a pair of new black trousers, gold spectacles, and of course a white tie, walks in. He introduces himself. I beg him to be seated, and ask what I can do for him. Not without emotion, the young devotee of science begins telling me that he has passed his examination as a doctor of medicine, and that he has now only to write his dissertation. He would like to work with me under my guidance, and he would be greatly obliged to me if I would give him a subject for his dissertation.

"Very glad to be of use to you, colleague," I say, "but just let us come to an understanding as to the meaning of a dissertation. That word is taken to mean a composition which is a product of independent creative effort. Is that not so? A work written on another man's subject and under another man's guidance is called something different ..."

"Why is it you all come to me?" I cry angrily. "Do I keep a shop? I don't deal in subjects. For the thousand and oneth time I ask you all to leave me in peace! Excuse my brutality, but I am quite sick of it!"

The doctor remains silent, but a faint flush is apparent on his cheek-bones. His face expresses a profound reverence for my fame and my learning, but from his eyes I can see he feels a contempt for my voice, my pitiful figure, and my nervous gesticulation. I impress him in my anger as a queer fish.

"I don't keep a shop," I go on angrily. "And it is a strange thing! Why don't you want to be independent? Why have you such a distaste for independence?"

I say a great deal, but he still remains silent. By degrees I calm down, and of course give in. The doctor gets a subject from me for his theme not worth a halfpenny, writes under my supervision a dissertation of no use to any one, with dignity defends it in a dreary discussion, and receives a degree of no use to him.» (...)

Monday, October 24, 2005

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Thursday, October 20, 2005

“To proclaim the use of images, argued Sklovskij, as the distinctive feature of literary art is to posit a frame of reference at once too broad and too narrow. Poetic diction and imagery, he continued, are not coextensive notions. On the one hand, the area of figurative speech is much broader than that of poetry, as 'tropes' appear on various levels of language, for instance in picturesque colloquialisms or in the rhetorical figures of oratory. On the other hand, as Jakobson has pointed out, a work of poetry can sometimes dispense with 'images' in the usual sense without losing any of its suggestiveness. According to Jakobson, a good exemple of this is provided by Puskin's famous lyric, "I Loved You Once", which achieves the intended effect - that of wistful resignation, half-concealing a still smouldering passion - without having recourse to any figures of speech. The efficacy of this lyrical masterpiece rests solely on a successful manipulation of grammatical oppositions and of phrase melody. Obviously, insisted the Formalists, there is such a thing as a non-figurative poem, as well as a non-poetic image.

"The poet", wrote Skloyskij, "does not create images; he finds them [in ordinary language - V.E.] or recollects them." Consequently, it is not in the mere presence of imagery, but in the use to which it is being put that one should seek the differentia of poetry.” (Viktor Erlich, Russian Formalism, History, Doctrine,Mouton, The Hague-Paris, 1969, third edit.)